Speech Topics
Speech topics grouped by type, each list with the timing and structure you need to deliver it.
How to pick a speech topic
- You care about it. Pick something you'd talk about even without a grade on the line. Your audience can hear the difference.
- Fits your time. Narrow it until you can cover it well in your time limit. Big topics get shallow fast.
- Easy to research. Make sure you can find solid, trustworthy sources. If the facts aren't out there, move on.
- Matters to listeners. Choose something your audience will care about or use. Connect it to their lives in the first minute.
- Clear in one sentence. If you can't state your point in one sentence, the topic isn't ready. Tighten it until you can.
How long should your speech be?
Start with your time limit and work backward to a word count. At a natural pace of about 150 words per minute, a 5-minute speech needs roughly 750 words.
| Speech length | Words to write |
|---|---|
| 2 minutes | 260 to 300 words |
| 3 minutes | 390 to 450 words |
| 5 minutes | 650 to 750 words |
| 7 minutes | 910 to 1,050 words |
| 10 minutes | 1,300 to 1,500 words |
Not sure how long yours runs? Time your speech with the free words to minutes calculator.
Featured speech topics
Persuasive
- Schools should start after 9 a.m. Argue from sleep research and attendance data.
- High schools should require a personal finance class. Argue from budgeting, credit, and taxes that every adult faces.
- Colleges should drop legacy admissions. Argue from fairness, merit, and opening doors to first-generation students.
- AI tools should be allowed in school with clear rules. Argue from real-world skills, honest use, and teaching students to check AI's work.
- Single-use plastic bags should be banned. Argue from litter, ocean waste, and how easily reusable bags replace them.
Informative
- How bees communicate Explain the waggle dance and how bees share where to find food.
- How credit scores work Cover what goes into a score and how everyday choices affect it.
- How octopuses camouflage themselves Cover the skin cells that let them change color and texture.
- The building of the Great Pyramid of Giza Cover what historians know about who built it and how.
- How artificial intelligence learns Explain training data, patterns, and how models make predictions.
Hear your speech before your audience does
Paste your script into Script Timer to time it, grade the delivery and hear it in 100+ AI voices.